Lithium miner Piedmont Lithium has reported a 40% increase in its lithium resource at its namesake project in North Carolina.
The ASX-listed company on Thursday announced that the total mineral resource estimate for the Piedmont project now stood at 39.2-million tonnes, at 1.09% lithium oxide, for an estimated 422 000 t of lithium oxide and 1.04-million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent.
“Increasing the scale of our North Carolina mineral resource establishes our asset as one of the largest spodumene resources in North America, and the only one in the US,” said Piedmont president and CEO Keith Phillips.
“The expanded resource offers the potential for increased annual lithium production, something we will evaluate as we prepare our updated scoping study for release next month.
“All this is coming together at an ideal time, as the public and private sectors dramatically increase their investment in the electrification of America. Given the scope and strategic location of our Piedmont lithium project, we believe we are ideally positioned to play a critical role in helping the US build a clean energy economy and a US-based electric vehicle supply chain,” said Phillips.